5 Marketing Moves for Business Success 1

5 Marketing Moves for Business Success

Summary:

Effective marketing can be simplified into five moves – five concrete actions – that you can implement immediately. Your challenge: try one or more of these NOW.

Keywords:

marketing effectiveness, marketing consulting, marketing moves, business marketing, sales strategies

Marketing has traditionally been broken down to a formula known as “the 5P’s” – the five factors that make up an organization’s marketing strategy. If these are done consistently, well, and for a long enough period of time, these 5 factors also become part of their brand.

So far, so good. But the problem is that no one can seem to agree on exactly which 5 P’s are important, so the list typically includes: people, product, place, process, price, promotion, paradigm, perspective, persuasion, passion, positioning, packaging, and performance.

Wow. Sounds complicated, huh? I’m going to try and simplify effective marketing into five moves – five concrete actions – that you can implement immediately. Your challenge: try one or more of these NOW.

Move 1: Move Up

Want to try something different? The next time you’re speaking with a prospect, when the question of price comes up, DOUBLE your normal price and see what happens.

Am I crazy?

Maybe, maybe not. The other side of the coin is that maybe YOU’RE crazy for not charging for VALUE, but instead competing on PRICE. Businesses that compete on price lose. Period.

The easiest thing your competition can do is undercut your price. In fact, the first thing they will copy is your price. It takes no imagination, no creativity, no innovation, no market leadership, and no vision to lower the cost of something. And it hurts all parties involved. Lower prices always mean lower profits. Studies have shown that a 1% drop in price leads to an 8% drop in profit.

What happens when you double your usual price?

Several things. Prospects perceive:

* An increase in the value of your product/service

* An increased level of prestige in owning/using your product/service

* An increased level of trust in you – and all your other offerings (the halo effect)

* An increased level of confidence that your product/service really works

A marketing consultant that I respect once gave me a very valuable piece of advice. She said, “Be expensive or... be free.” Being one of the most expensive providers of service is remarkable – people talk about their $200,000 Italian sports car or $21,000 platinum-plated cell phone. Nobody talks about their $19,000 GM sedan.

I’ve helped companies double their prices, with great success, and I’ve helped independent consultants double [and in one case triple] their fees. In each of those cases, they got more clients, not fewer. Details on how to do this in Move 3. And perhaps this means you’ll lose a few unprofitable clients along the way. If you don’t lose some unprofitable clients, you won’t have room to serve the more profitable ones when they come along. It’s professional suicide to continue focusing on serving a market sector “that can afford” to pay your old (low) prices. Price doesn’t find clients. VALUE finds clients. And those clients that value your work should – and will – pay according to that value.

Free is also a powerful price point. And, of course, free is remarkable. Which is another facet to moving up – you move up when you give VALUE first. For free. Got a great idea for a prospect? Great! SEND IT TO THEM. Even better, got a business lead for them? Hand it over! Did you come across an article, a profile, or a piece of research that directly impacts their business? Clip it and mail it to the top person with a brief note. That prospect’s door is now open.

Move 2: Move In

Moving in means moving closer to the customer. Live in their world, think about their problems, and think about their clients and prospects. What’s the first step? Research. Preparation. Homework. Industry, regional, business, and company news is now at every salesperson’s fingertips on the Internet. If you’re not intelligently researching your prospect’s issues, challenges, and pressures, how can you possibly come in with a credible solution?

Don’t like sitting at the computer all day? An even better idea is to hit the street. Visit businesses, talk to your contacts in the fields you serve, get some firsthand information about what’s going on in their world – what are their challenges, perspectives, obstacles, priorities; what are their dreams, their “only-ifs,” and their biggest aspirations?

Is this a lot of work? You bet. Do the majority of salespeople put in this kind of effort? No way. Which is exactly why YOU should. That brings us to Move 3.

Move 3: Move Ahead

Moving ahead means going above and beyond what most salespeople are doing. It means putting in the work – yes, the real, hard work – that makes the difference between being a peddler and being a partner.

Want to move ahead? Start by avoiding doing things your prospects dislike.

Here are the top 10 things salespeople do that buyers dislike according to a Purchasing magazine survey. See if you (or your sales team) might be guilty of any of the following professional no-no’s:

10.Failure to keep promises

9. Lack of creativity

8. Failure to make and keep appointments

7. Lack of awareness of the customer's operation ("What do you guys do here?")

6. Taking the customer for granted

5. Lack of follow-through

4. Lack of product knowledge

3. Overaggressiveness and failure to listen

2. Lack of interest or purpose ("Just checking in")

... and the Number 1 dislike: Lack of preparation.

You can also move ahead by charging more (remember Move 1?) and DEMONSTRATING the VALUE of your product service with hard numbers.

In his insightful book, How to Become a Rainmaker, author Jeffrey Fox calls this process dollarizing. Dollarizing is one of the most powerful sales techniques because once you show (with real numbers that your prospect will provide you with) the return on investment – how THIS much spent will generate these much savings, or profits, or sales, or new clients, or hours, etc. – you basically shift the conversation from selling what you’re selling to SELLING MONEY.

In my seminars, I do an exercise called “The Money Machine” that will help you spell this out in hard dollars, very clearly.

The Money Machine goes one step further because you can use it monetize against:

* competing products/services

* the prospect doing nothing

* the prospect doing it themselves

* other things the prospect is already comfortable spending money on

Book a consultation http://jamesmakoetla.me, email me: tsuibila@yahoo.com

Suddenly, your product/service becomes a real “investment”: meaning, you can show people the math behind “this much IN” for “this much OUT.” There’s nothing much easier than selling money at a discount!

Here’s another way to move ahead: stop the ridiculous game of “closing the sale.” Closing is not a technique; closing is not a trick; closing is not about magic phrases and looks and power games. Closing should be a natural extension of your conversation, and the two most effective questions you should ask your prospect as you near the end of your value-based discussion are:

1. Does what we’ve talked about so far make sense?

2. What would you like me to do next?

An answer to Question 1: If you’ve prepared for the meeting, discussed the prospect’s key issues, and monetized the value of your solution, of course, it makes sense!

An answer to Question 2: “Let’s go ahead” or “Let’s do the paperwork.” Or if your prospect answers this with “Get Out” or “Drop Dead,” you have a pretty good idea that the sale is not ready to close. Seriously, carefully listening to the answer to this question will allow you to address any hidden concerns, hesitations, or issues – right then and there before the prospect would otherwise blurt out an abrupt “No!” to any other traditional “ask for the sale” verbiage that so many sales trainers recommend. Remember, you’re not there to sell – you’re there to HELP THE PROSPECT BUY. If you need to tattoo that on your forehead, be my guest.

Move 4: Move Aside

Here’s another thing that most sales and marketing people have a hard time with: you can’t be all things to all people. Move Aside is about finding your niche, and claiming your expertise in a narrow area of specialty. In plain English, this means you want to become the “Go-To Guy” for your specific product or service – the exact opposite of a “jack-of-all-trades and master of none.”

The people you speak with will have a very different reaction to these two mental images of your product/service:

* “I think we can make this fit.”

* “This is exactly what we’ve been looking for.”

Let me give you an example. There’s a real company that lists among its services “Carpet removal, house cleaning, odd jobs, catering.” Now, I don’t know about you, but when I want a caterer, I’m looking for someone who does catering 24/7. I don’t want to have to worry about “Did they wash their hands after the carpet removal job and before serving my guests?” In fact, if I’m looking for a caterer for a wedding, I might even be drawn to “Wedding Bells Catering” much more so than “Sam’s Catering” or “Good Eats Catering.”

Here’s another example. There are lots of graphic design companies that do all sorts of work – websites, logo design, brochures, collateral material, wine labels, book packaging, etc. You name it, they do it. And business is generally OK. (But let’s face it, if they were going like gangbusters, they probably wouldn’t have sought out my help!) Some of them had a hard time differentiating themselves from the competition and others found it challenging to develop a strong client base and referral network. We’ve had some good success developing their current business, but when we delve into the possibilities of “Moving Aside” and carving out a real niche, or developing one thing that is their flagship specialty, most of my clients get cold feet.

Move 5: Move Alone

Right now, you are lost in a sea of gray. Me-too rules the day. Everywhere you look, there is more and more and MORE of the SAME OLD THING sold by the SAME OLD PEOPLE in the SAME OLD WAY. Boring. And deadly.

The problem is that people don’t buy gray. If you and your company and your offerings blend into the background, you might as well close up shop right now. Let me put it another way: all companies go bankrupt. It’s just a matter of time. Want proof? Out of the 100 largest companies of 50 years ago, 17 survive today. And none of those 17 are the market leaders they used to be.

Why? Shift happens. If you’re not separating yourself from the crowd, you’re blending in – and nobody will even notice you, much less seek you out and tell their friends about you.

Here’s an example of a company that really hasn’t been doing a bad job – but they’re also not the standouts they used to be.

On a recent call to American Express, an executive was straightening out a billing problem. At the end of the call, the operator asked her, “Have I exceeded your expectations for this call?” and the exec flatly answered, “No.” She had a billing problem, and the rep fixed it. That’s the expectation.

Now, if the rep had offered the executive a $50 American Express gift check to be used at any of American Express’ online retail partners, THAT would have exceeded expectations, right? That story would be worth repeating to 10-20 people. Can you imagine the executive telling anyone, “Hey, I called AmEx to fix my billing error. Guess what? They did it!” That’s not moving alone.

Here’s a good test to see if your marketing and sales strategies are in the category of “moving alone” – they are if you’re doing something that:

* is “simply not done” in your industry

* customers will make a remark about (remarkable!)

* goes against conventional wisdom (I call this “uncommon sense”)

* others (including your competition) think is “crazy”

* others (including your competition) will actually be AFRAID to copy

Get silly. Get crazy. Get an attitude. Get noticed.

Author Seth Godin perhaps put this most succinctly when he said, “Safe is risky. And risky is safe.”

Let me conclude with a recap of the 5 Marketing Moves:

1. Move Up = Get more valuable

2. Move In = Get Closer

3. Move Ahead = Get smarter

4. Move Aside = Get specialized

5. Move Alone = Get noticed

Taken together, these will also help you make the Ultimate Move = Get insanely great.

And remember the immortal words of Jerry Garcia:

“You don’t want to be considered the best of the best.
You want to be considered the only ones who do what you do.”

M.APPBUILD.IO

J Makoetla Article Marketing & Ads app

Video Takes The Web 1

Video Takes Over the Web

Today, the web has become one of the most common platforms for personal socializing and marketing products and services throughout the world. With more bandwidth, now available for almost the price of peanuts, it has become very easy to put up content in the form of audio, video and images as compared to plain text. As the web began to take off and technology improved, people were able to use and utilize more interactive forms of media via the web. 

Because of this, one of the most effective advertising and communicative media- web videos, have taken the place of TV commercials, life experiences and short movies! 
Websites like Youtube.com and the likes, have capitalized on this phenomenon and have rooted themselves firmly into the world of videos, which are taking over the web. 

With various playback technologies now supported by the web, it has now become easier than ever to incorporate videos on any website, hosted on any platform. The cost of putting up videos on the web is all dependent on the purpose and goal of the web videos. 

Many large and small brands alike, have realized the potential of websites like youtube.com, and are releasing videos on the web, for their marketing campaigns. Individuals too, utilize and release web videos over the web. Some videos released over the web, are about sharing life experiences, some are about personal interviews, some for dating and so on. 

Videos have taken over the web like a storm and their popularity is ever growing and ever increasing. So much so that, today major search engines like Google and Yahoo are working on web video search algorithms. The popularity of videos over the internet has soared to new heights especially with the advent of web video blogs, particularly since the sole purpose of web blogs, in general, is to facilitate the sharing of information, be it personal or commercial, with one’s self and others. 

Web videos have another, ulterior advantage as compared to other web media like images, sounds and animation; that being the power to grab attention of all individuals efficiently, since the average attention span of an average Joe or Jane is extremely short and plenty of other options are available. Since, web videos are efficient and more to the point, many prefer to watch rather than read or listen. Web videos also offer extremely high entertainment value, engaging potential readers and customers alike, and the same time they are competent in portraying what one may want others to know, be it life experiences or marketing bottom-lines. 

Thus web videos are not only the best and most efficient marketing tools on the web today, but also the best way to communicate and stay in touch with family and friends, express one’s feelings or give personal interviews. The ease of use, entertainment value and attention grabbing ability of web videos coupled up with the fact that they are easy to make/record, upload, and share, is video has taken over the web.

RSS Feeds Go Crazy In The Marketplace

Learn how easy it is to add RSS Feeds to your websites and increase your stickiness and retention rate of your visitors.
Geeks and Bloggers use RSS exclusively for the publishing and subscribing to news headlines and blog feeds, however many other innovative and useful applications of RSS have been sprouting up here and there. 

The marketplace is quickly learning that you can use RSS content feeds for so much more and it's getting crazy and wild out there in the business world.

To see a small sampling of what people are doing with feeds visit http://www.msifetch.com/Unique_Feeds.html 

Everything from audios and videos, recipes, graphics, weather, comic strips and much more. It seems there is no limit to what you can do with a little ingenuity and creative thought.

Many of the larger sites are starting to utilize these new features making it a lot more interesting adding such feeds to your website. Companies like Apple, Ebay, Amazon and shopping channels are offering a much more graphical interface than just a headline and a paragraph.

With the web surfer becoming much more "web savvy" than they were a year ago, they are expecting not only information but also an entertaining web experience. People love watching or listening to media and this also means they are more likely to read your message while they are visiting.

While most RSS Feeds were simply headlines and a small amount of text there was not really any reason to add these feeds to your website. As this is rapidly changing the ability to add some of these new feeds means great content for your website and good search engine ranking because of the constantly changing content.

Not only can you bring outside feeds into your sites but it is also very easily create your own from the desktop. Programs like RSS Editor and RSS Builder are free RSS Feed creators that let you make feeds that can then be offered from any website.

Embedding RSS Feeds in your Web Site

MSIFetch http://www.msifetch.com is a new generation of server - site software that allows anyone to take a feed and embed it directly in their website. This new format produces PHP feeds so they look like part of your page and are seen by search engines like content.

There are many services that do this for free however they get most of the credit so to have it all running on your own site makes a lot more sense.

Advertising in RSS Feeds

As publishers have moved towards monetizing RSS feeds, there have been vibrant discussions as to whether advertisements in feeds are viable or whether they will drive subscribers away. At the end of the day while it appears that many are discussing the philosophical approaches to ads in RSS feeds few are taking the time to examine the options available for inserting advertisements in feeds.

Ultimately the advertisements served are going to determine the success of RSS as an advertising medium. The ads served must be related to the content contained in the feed. If the RSS feed contains quality content, the ads are relevant, and the volume of ads is in balance with the volume of content served, advertising in RSS feeds will succeed. Take a closer look at some of the ad serving options currently available for RSS feeds.

RSS Feeds are starting to take on a whole new feel and if you have not yet investigated all the incredible possibilities then you should do your self a favor and have a look.

THE SELLING SECRETS OF MILLION DOLLAR SA

THE SELLING SECRETS OF MILLION DOLLAR SALES LETTERS

Regardless of what you're trying to sell, you really can't sell
it without "talking" with your prospective buyer. And in
attempting to sell anything by mail, the sales letter you send
out is when and how you talk to your prospect.

All winning sales letters "talk" to the prospect by creating an
image in the mind of the reader. They "set the scene" by
appealing to a desire or need; and then that flow smoothly into
the "visionary" part of the sales pitch by describing in detail
how wonderful life will be and, how "good" the prospect is going
to feel after he's purchased your product. This is the"body or
guts" of a sales letter.

Overall, a winning sales letter follows a time-tested and proven
formula: 1) Get his attention 2) Get him interested in what you
can do for him 3) Make him desire the benefits of your product so
badly his mouth begins to water 4) Demand action from him-tell
him to send for whatever it is you're selling without delay- any
procrastination on his part might cause him to lose out. This is
called the " AIDA' formula and it works.

Sales letters that pull in the most sales are almost always two
pages with 1 1/2 spaces between lines. For really big ticket
items, they'll run at least four pages- on an 11 by 17- inch sheet
of paper folded in half. If your sales letter is only two pages
in length, there's nothing wrong with running it on the front and
back of one sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 paper. However, your sales letter
should always be letterhead paper- your letterhead printed,, and
including your logo and business motto if you have one.

Regardless of the length of your sales letter, it should do one
thing, and that sells, and sell hard! If you intend to close the
sale, you've got to do it with your sales letter. You should
never be "wishy-washy" with your sales letter and expect to close
the sale with a color brochure or circular. You do the actual
selling and the closing of that sale with your sales letter- any
brochure or circular you send along with it will just reinforce
what you say in the sales letter.

There's been a great deal of discussion in the past few years
regarding just how long a sales letter should be. A lot of people
are asking: Will people really take the time to read a long sales
letter. The answer is a simple and time-tested yes indeed!
Surveys and tests over the years emphatically proven that longer
sales letter pull even better than the shorter ones, so don't
worry about the length of your sales letter- just make sure that
it sells your product for you!

The "inside secret" is to make your sales letter so interesting,
and "visionary" with the benefits you're offering to the reader,
and he can't resist reading it all the way through. You break up
the "work" of reading by using short, punchy sentences,
underlining important points you're trying to make, with the use
of subheadlines, indentations and even the use of a second color.

Relative to the brochure or circulars you may want to include
with your sales letter reinforce the sale- providing the
materials you're enclosing are the best quality, they will
generally, reinforce the sale for you. But, if they are of poor
quality, look cheap and don't complement thing, it will
definitely classify you as an independent home-worker if you
hand-stamp you name/address on these brochures or advertising
circulars.

Whenever possible, and so long as you have really good brochures
to send out, have your printer run them thru his press and print
your name/address- even your telephone number and company logo-
on them before you send them out. The thing is, you want your
prospect to think of you as his supplier- the company- and not
just another mail order operator. Sure, you can get by with less
expensive but you'll end up with fewer orders and in the end,
fewer profits.

Another thing that's been bandied about and discussed from every
direction for years is whether to use a post office box number of
your street address. Generally, it's best to include both your
post office box number AND, your street address of your sales
letter. This kind of open display of your honesty will give you
credibility and dispell the thought of you being just another
"fly-by-night" mail order company in the mind of the prospect.

Above all else, you've got to include some sort of ordering
coupon. This coupon has to be simple and easy for the prospect to
fill out and return to you as you can possibly make it. A great
many sales are lost because this order coupon is just too
complicated for the would-be buyer to follow. Don't get fancy!
Keep it simple, and you'll find you prospects responding with
glee.

Should you or shouldn't you include a self-addressed reply
envelope? There are a lot of variables as well as pro's and con's
to this question, but overall, when you send out a "winning"
sales letter to a good mailing list, a return reply envelope will
increase your response tremendously.

Tests of the late seem to indicate that it isn't that big of a
deal or difference in responses relative to whether you or don't
pre-stamp the return envelope. Again, the decision here will rest
primarily on the product you're selling and the mailing list
you're using. Our recommendation is that you experiment- try it
boh ways- with different mailings, and decide for yourself from
there.